You can buy a Stratocaster almost anywhere, so it is fair to ask why you would buy one here. The honest answer is on this page right now: a current-production Strat, a Masterbuilt Strat, and a real 1960s Strat, all within reach of each other. Most shops carry one of those three. We carry all three, and nobody here works on commission, so there is no version of this where we steer you toward the bigger number.
Fender tends to run deepest here, from current production through Custom Shop 1950s and 1960s builds and a dozen or so Masterbuilt guitars, where one named builder at the Custom Shop makes the entire instrument. Alongside those sit vintage Fender and vintage Gibson: ES-335s and 345s, SGs, Les Pauls, and the hollowbodies, plus the occasional Rickenbacker or Epiphone. Some of what is on this page was finished last month and some of it was finished sixty years ago.
Which one you want is a real question, not a marketing one. Vintage gives you an instrument nobody can build again and a history you can hear and feel. New gives you a warranty, a neck spec chosen rather than inherited, and no anxiety about taking it to a gig. Both are correct answers depending on what you are doing. Tell us what you play and what you are chasing, and we will tell you which side of that line you belong on and which specific guitar gets you there. Some people settle it over the phone and have it shipped. Others drive in from across New England, line up a few, and take an afternoon over it at our showroom, about 20 minutes from downtown Boston.
